The All Wales Scam Busters, who will keep a watchful eye on crooks and con men across the region, will have a base in Conwy.

They will conduct their own North Wales cross-border investigations and back up trading officers to catch criminals in larger operations.

The Wales Heads of Trading Standards (WHoTS) have submitted a successful bid for the Wales region and funding has been granted for a three-year project.

It comes after concerns about the number of scammers and fraudsters duping people out of their hard-earned cash.

The new all-Wales team follows a successful pilot project in three regions of England, and will operate under the overall direction of Newport City Council, but members of the team will have a branch office at Conwy County Borough Council.

The work of the team, who have police and trading standards experience, will be overseen by a WHoTS Governance Board.

The aim is for officers to be able to carry out investigations across Wales local authorities.

Wrexham council will be asked to give permission to allow them to conduct investigations in the county next Tuesday.

In a report Wrexham chief housing and public protection officer Andy Lewis said: “It is anticipated that the Scam Busters Team will deal mainly with the following types of crime:-

“Itinerant traders who carry out bogus property repairs, suppliers of counterfeit goods who operate from various markets and car boot sales, bogus trade directories, scratchcards and sweepstakes and the distribution of unsafe goods over a widespread area.”

Mr Lewis added: “It is recognised that some traders operate transiently in order to avoid detection and prosecution.

“Particularly in the case of bogus building work, offenders may work in an area for a few days and then move onto another local authority area.

“By the time offences come to light the offender has moved to a different authority’s area, making investigation and detection difficult.

“Being authorised to operate across boundaries will enable the Scam Busters Team to target suspects and carry out surveillance wherever they are operating.”

For the past two years WHoTS have employed a regional intelligence officer to whom Trading Standards and police have provided information.

This will form the basis of many of the investigations undertaken by the team.

The three regional Scam Busters Teams in England have been operational since 2006.

In their first two years of operation they saved consumers more than £3m, seized £2m worth of assets associated with criminal activity, and uncovered fraud amounting to more than £16m.

The team also closed down 75 e-mail addresses and phone numbers used by national mailing scams and shut 165 websites of suspected rogue traders.